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This Boy's Life

I just finished reading the memoir "This Boy's Life" and it is a very readable book. A little bit sad though. Tobias Wolfe sure had a rough childhood, his mother being sort of unstable, and them marrying a total crepezoid, and the two of them having to move to Concrete, Washington and having to live with him and his three other children.

This book has been made into a movie with Robert Deniro starring as the creepy step dad!! Much of the story takes place in Seattle and in Concrete, making it somewhat of a local read! Another FAVORITE book of mine, Yellow Raft in Blue Water, also has a local element. But we will discuss that another time.

Wolfe writes very fluidly and one of the things that I really like about the book is that even though much of what he writes about is sad, he is also very funny. He was a very mischevious youngester, always getting himself into trouble and having his kind mother 'understand' him and somehow bail him out. Also at the end is a scene where he tries to pawn three of his guns and gets totally ripped off.